Drag Race Episode One Recap: All Stars 3? We Don’t Know Her

An illustration of Mayhem Miller in the season premiere of RuPaul's Drag Race Season 10.Laura Collins

After throwing fans for a royal Halleloop last week, last night’s Season 10 premiere of RuPaul’s Drag Race was saddled with the mammoth task of making us forget All Stars 3 happened — a bumpy ride of a season with so many gratuitous twists and turns I get motion sickness just thinking about it.

I’m happy to report that the premiere accomplished that goal, with a fresh crop of queens that included some wildly charming characters (Miz Cracker, Monet X Change) along with some promising pot-stirrers (The Vixen, Kalorie Karbdashian) who serve good tea on Untucked. Eureka O’Hara is there too! Good for her.

This week’s mini-challenge (hooray for mini-challenges!) saw the queens strutting their stuff down a runway in the presence of any Drag Race legend who didn’t have a scheduling conflict. Among them were Jinkx Monsoon, recent All Stars Hall of Fame inductee Trixie Mattel, Bob the Drag Queen, and many, many more. No pressure, ladies!

Monet X Change swept the mini-challenge just by being her general self (energetic, a delight), though Trixie deserved a prize just for her comments about Aquaria accidentally slapping Jinkx Monsoon on the runway: “Roxxxy Andrews just jumped out of her seat in a gay bar and is clapping because you just slapped Jinkx.” I died. My ghost resumed viewing.

It became apparent to me from that point on that season 10 isn’t going to be a bust. Its narrative arcs have hooked us good and early, and I find them to be quite compelling.

It’s obvious that lookalikes Aquaria (who, it must be stressed, is quite famous on Instagram) and Miz Cracker (also a delight) will soon enter a “neither can live while the other survives” clone war. Mayhem will try to earn her keep after finally being given a shot on the show. Dusty Ray Bottoms will try to shield her signature face dots from the wrath of Michelle Visage, who (predictably) despises them. And Eureka will soldier on after getting knee surgery following an ACL tear she suffered during season 9 — an experience that genuinely sounded harrowing after she described it at length this episode, and inspires sincere respect for whatever airtight document she signed to keep her from suing the show.

However, there are a few Season 10 arcs I’m less excited for. Yuhua is quirky and hilarious, but is the gig that she can sew, but she can’t design? What’s happening there? Will Kameron Michaels just sit around quietly all season like a tall, muscular ornament while all the queens pine over how hot he is out of drag? I hope not. The “hot as a boy” storyline is a thing, but not a very compelling one. It’s like being a hot Instagay and then joining Twitter to make jokes. Why are you here?

Overall, though, this was a strong first episode that did everything it needed to for viewers and then some. The first main challenge was “drag on a dime,” in which queens were made to construct a look out of pure garbage, mawma. It was a throwback to season one that put the focus back on what we love about this show: queens making something out of nothing.

Yes, if this episode portends anything, it’s that Drag Race has remembered it is Drag Race. There was enough drama last night to hook us in without making us cringe. Untucked was way less bloated without that docu-style black and white intro it previously tried to make happen. RuPaul finally let the Pit Crew out of the basement where they were being held. She even surprised us by wearing a catsuit on the runway, proving she still has legs after all. We pushed her to these drastic measures to bury the memory of last week’s finale. And it worked.

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All Stars 3? We don’t know her.

But a welcome return to form for Season 10 meant that someone had to get sent home in the first episode. None of that “everybody say love” non-elimination crap from season nine, where Gaga (whom we adore!) sucked the air out of the premiere, the gravity of her star turning the queens into lesser satellites. Christina Aguilera was a much more balanced presence in her role as this first episode’s guest judge. She was charming and effusive and belted out one of her signature HEEEyyyyYYYyyeeeaaahhh’s on the mic, a victory for gays everywhere. She even did an impression of Farrah Moan, which probably gave her a heart attack from the sheer gag of it all. RIP, Farrah!

A teary-eyed Mayhem Miller took the top slot (she’s just been waiting for this for so long, y’all) for her fierce rubber glove look. The bottom two were plus-size queen Kalorie Karbdashian in a sloppy dollar-dollar-bill look and Vanessa Vanjie of House Mateo in a pink Barbie nightmare-fuel outfit. Other queens walked down the runway too, but aside from Miz Cracker, who turned it out with some sun hats, and a polarizing Lil Hoe-Peep moment from Aquaria, they were largely forgettable. Oh, and Dusty Ray Bottoms wore a cone on his head and was read to filth for it. Devastating.

After a lip sync battle to “Ain’t No Other Man,” in which Karbdashian displayed formidable chops, it was banjee princess Vanessa who sashayed away. I don’t think I’ve ever been so sad about the first queen to be eliminated. Her confessionals were genuinely hilarious, and I was looking forward to her screaming at us mere inches from our faces every Thursday.

You will live on in our hearts, Vanessa. BAM!

John Paul Brammer is a New York-based writer and advice columnist from Oklahoma whose work has appeared in The Guardian, Slate, NBC, BuzzFeed and more. He is currently in the process of writing his first novel.

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